Santa Barbara Restaurants Snubbed by Michelin in New California Guide

June 4, 2019, 9:59 am 22.6k Views 47 Comments

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By Lauren Bray

The coveted Michelin Guide stars were announced in a new guide of California and Santa Barbara restaurants fell behind earning zero stars.

In March we reported the esteemed Michelin Guide announced it would review restaurants in Santa Barbara and other counties outside the San Francisco Bay area for their new California Guide.

Before this year, Michelin only rated California restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area, which incorporated Napa, Sonoma, and San Jose. Now, the new Michelin Guide California 2019 in partnership with Visit California, expanded their horizons down the coast through Monterey, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

On Monday, Michelin announced the restaurants that earned the coveted one to three stars. California earned a total of 90 stars, 24 were given to Los Angeles area restaurants, expectedly the San Francisco Bay area received the majority of the love, Carmel in Monterey County received one, San Diego County also received one, Orange County received two, and Santa Barbara received zero.

It’s unclear which restaurants were visited in the Santa Barbara area. 

Visit guide.michelin.com to see the full list of new Michelin-starred restaurants.

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 March 10, 2019 – Michelin Guide Comes to Santa Barbara

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Written by lauren

Lauren is the Publisher of edhat.com. She enjoys short walks on the beach, interesting facts about bees, and any kind of homemade cookie.

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47 Comments

  1. I was taken to Stella Mares recently and thought the food was fantastic. The waiter was outstanding taking care of us and was especially gracious to the 2 youngsters (5 & 9 yrs). Have no idea of the cost, imagine it’s pretty high for such good food and excellent service.

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  3. Meh, Michelin should just stick with tires. If you want to spend too much money on pretty food yes by all means follow the guide. Two stars went to Californios in SF where it is $223 per person for the dining experience. Those frijoles son muy caro!

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  4. We have some great food in town – don’t get me wrong, but none of the SB restaurants would qualify for a Michelin star. And with that being said – you can be a restaurant with awesome food and no star. And the prices will be cheaper without the Michelin star. Go away Michelin 🙂

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  11. It’s not the Michelin star that bumps up the prices but the quality and cost of the ingredients, skill and creativity of the chef, ambience and decor of the place that makes a place costly. A Michelin star can be lost a lot more easily than it can be earned… all it takes is complacency.

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  12. Many people care for different reasons. You obviously cared enough to comment. I find this news interesting as a “foodie” because for the first time in Michelin Guide history, they opened up to review SB, and they found it wasn’t worthy of their standards.

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  15. I’d be interested to know how many of these LA and SF restaurants had valet parking, which is not as popular in SB, but without it you take your chances getting panhandled while stepping around sidewalk campers. I’d guess that’s a turn-off to restaurant reviewer types – few like that sort of authentic ambiance. Welcome to SB!

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  20. Maybe service is a factor?? Really good service is a rarity in SB and would explain missing the mark for Michelin. Anyway, Michelin is old school and while I am sure it adds some welcome prestige to its recipients, I cannot imagine looking for it as a customer. I do use Yelp all the time and can sort through the reviews (and posted pictures) to get a good idea about a place. I also leave Yelp reviews all the time and plenty of business owners have responded. It seems to be the best way to get real feedback for customers and owners alike!

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  22. It’s Pane e Vino. The Dutch Garden is still in business, so I guess it was a major fluke that the absolute worst meal I was ever served in my hometown was at DG. (To be fair, that was about 8 years ago, but still memorably awful.) Does anyone local still eat at Opal? Opal, where the corkage fee (five years ago) was $25 per bottle?

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  25. As usual, there are many comments here that have absolutely nothing to do with the actual article, and so many of them give me a big chuckle. The article was about the fact Santa Barbara received no stars and was “Snubbed”, which is completely accurate based on what Michelin uses to award that level of achievement. The fact that local restaurant “XYZ” serves a “mean hamburger” and that restaurant “XYX” serves a piece of cherry pie that even Kyle McLaughlin would enjoy has absolutely no correlation to the article and to the sad fact we do not have even a One Star restaurant here. And the ubiquitous defeatist “If you don’t like it here, why don’t you move?” comments also have nothing to do with the article and Michel ratings. Obviously SANTABARBARAOBSERVER, BOSCO, and others get it, but the others who don’t will continue to enjoy their ignorant bliss amid mediocre dining.

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  27. Eating out in SB is a luxury, and regular Santa Barbarans spend too much money on rent/mortgages to spend so much on fancy dinners. I personally will sacrifice a fancy meal for an amazing lifestyle any day.

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  28. This headline is disappointing- it reflects poorly on our community and undermines the accomplishments of Sama Sama Kitchen and Mesa Verde earning a mention with a Bib Gourmand. Santa Barbara was not snubbed.

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  29. Santa Barbara has some really high quality food, what they lack for the most part is quality service. These people think that opening a restaurant that was successful in LA can be a carbon copy in SB. What they fail to realize is that the x-factor that makes them successful in LA is them being there to train their people and manage the place. You can’t be in 2 places at once. Lucky’s, Arigato, Pane Vino, & Little Door are the only places in town that really tag the service side. I’m really impressed with the staff development at Little Door. The owner is there every night and puts an immense amount of effort into training his people and it shows. If you haven’t been there, try it – bottomless mussels on Tuesday nights, & if you bring a bottle of wine, ask to have the Czech guy pour it, his system is fantastic.

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  30. And another thing. The servers act like the 25% tip is theirs before you sit down. It’s become a social right for them to get paid no matter how much effort they give us. If everybody started tipping based on actual service quality, things would change. It’s really up to us to decide the level of service we require in our town.

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  31. If one goes out for good food and not dining, one can do very well in this town. Many classics and menu items done so well and so consistently at individual restaurants they are now well woven parts of the fabric of this town. One does not need to be trendy to win fans, there are consistent classics that also remain popular and unchanged all over town. And have nothing to do with Michelin standards – looking for “French” food outside of France. What we have is often good food; not just food fads. Glad to hear Sama Sama got its game back -started strong, hit a very disjointed low point and the place was filthy a few years back. Agree, out of town chefs who leave and lose control over their kitchen often passing it on to staff with no cultural background in the output product is a story of slow death in many an early splash restaurant. One more vote for local control and local love.

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  32. I largely agree with the Michelain assessment of Santa Barbara’s restaurants. It is time for our local restauranteurs to push their goals beyond the bottom line. Excellence is often its own reward and it give the community a reason to be proud.

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  33. Some single low-brow favorites, off the top of my head to start a local list of favorites for eating-not fine dining: #15 Special at La Superica; Antipasto Misto at Ca’Dario; Coconut layer cake at Jane’s; many items at Via Maestra 42; Renaud’s Croissants ;Hamburger and chocolate mousse pie at Paradise Cafe; Pepper and Parmesan pasta at Biltmore; Johnnie Walker Blue pudding at Caruso’s; Chicken Piccata at Chase; Happy Hour menu specials at The Boatyard; Teriyaki combo at SushiTeri; Old Amsterdam cheese with dried figs at home from Trader Joe’s. The frozen dinner fish korma from Trader Joe’s is pretty darn good too. Love to learn other’s go-to local standards when they simply want to eat well; not dine finely . The one’s people go back for over and over again and come away never disappointed.

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  34. As a server, I take issue with this comment. I love my customers, and my top goal is to make sure they have a stellar experience. I don’t know what restaurants you’ve been going to, but we try very hard to please our customers no matter what, and our service ratings every year for the past 25 years reflect that.

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  36. I have to tell you right now, that as a server who works in one of the restaurants that wins year after year, we have NEVER stuffed ballots or ever even paid an iota of attention to the poll or asked anyone to vote, but we win anyway. I promise that it’s legitimate voting (at least in our category).

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  39. Its clear that most of the commenters here have never eaten at a Michelin star restaurant or have an understanding of the quality and caliber required to meet their star rating standards. Its not just the food they measure, but every single detail. And in fine dining, the details are endless… There have been only a few places in SB over the years that would be able to match the Michelin standards and none of them cater to the pedestrian or tourist crowd on State St. If the measure of your meal is its cost or its size, then you are not the target for such ratings. I will agree with the sentiment that the service in SB is lacking. Even the best restaurants are staffed with people who do not know basic serving manners and procedures. But like Hawaii, you take what you can get. In SB that usually comes with a few “dudes” or “Bro” or, “I mean, yeah, like, ums… “.

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  45. To Mr. 08:38 AM: Personally, I’m making seared foie gras with carmelized pear glaze and grilled octopus with Salmoriglio dressing, served with a Daniel Rion 2008 Vosne Romanee Les Beau Bruns and Hubert Lamy 2014 St. Aubin Derrière Chez Edouard for the main courses tonight with my wife. Simple weeknight meal and you are welcome to join us if would like. Although, perhaps, you’d like to stay “down there” in your nice weather.

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